Lessons in Luxury

Everyone knows that the fundamental definition of luxury has been changing. The concepts of exclusivity and rarity are blurring as a result of global expansion, the demands of adapting to an online marketplace and the continual, relentless, grinding search for growth.

Three new books offer perspectives on this changing landscape, focusing on different strategies to help luxury companies of all sizes solidify their brands — and capture the imagination, and spending power, of the luxury consumer.

Luxury companies are not only fighting for survival, they are facing an opportunity for eternal greatness, according to the authors of “Rocket: Eight Lessons to Secure Infinite Growth” (McGraw Hill Education, $16.50), who dedicated the book to “the proposition that mere mortals can create immortality.”

More down-to-earth concepts are explored in “Kapferer on Luxury: How Luxury Brands Can Grow Yet Remain Rare” (Kogan Page, £29.99), from the well-known brand expert Jean-Noël Kapferer, who contends that luxury is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success. The more luxury companies capture mass-market consumers, the more product they have to create. “Put simply, the luxury market was not prepared to meet this kind of demand,” writes Dr. Kapferer, a professor at the business school HEC Paris who has written widely on aspects of luxury and is co-author of the reference book “The Luxury Strategy.”

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With an academic’s approach, he lays out the pitfalls of the mass market for an industry based on selling dreams. The modern industry must find a formula to grow, while still remaining exclusive, a situation he labels “abundant rarity.”

“How can a company build a dream and abandon rarity?” the professor asks. “In a sense, luxury is the art of absence.”

He has brought together a wide array of research to show the different factors buffeting the industry, like lower pricing and the role of the Internet. And the future will not be simple for many industry players, he concludes — noting that family-owned luxury companies, including the ones behind many of Italy’s most famous brands, will have to “transform themselves from manufacturers of rare products into creators of exceptional branded retail experiences.”

In “Independent Luxury: The Four Innovation Strategies to Endure in the Consolidation Jungle” (Palgrave Macmillan, £31.99), the authors Jonas Hoffmann and Laurent Lecamp focus on the industry’s smaller players, the ones being gobbled up by big companies or going out of business. Their thesis is simple: Independent luxury companies are becoming an endangered species (hence the book’s somewhat “Jurassic Park” illustration cover). To survive, they must innovate.

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Dr. Hoffmann, a professor of luxury strategy at the SKEMA Business School in France, and Mr. Lecamp, executive vice president sales for the Swiss watchmaker Carl F. Bucherer, offer four innovation strategies, with the catchy names of Eagle in the Aquarium, Game Changers, Code Breakers and Back to the Roots.

(Eagle in the Aquarium refers to what they describe as “invaders” in the luxury ecosystem, while Code Breakers are “playing with product and societal codes to culturally innovate and build the icons of today and tomorrow.”)

The four are layered through the authors’ overall “BA2RE luxury strategy” for success. The acronym for believing, anticipating, acting — so in the book’s typography the 2 is actually the squared symbol — reaching and enduring. Dozens of lengthy case studies are included, spotlighting large companies such as the watch giant Swatch Group and small brands including Thomas Mercer, which makes high-end chronometers, and the Chinese shoemaker Sheme.

Many of their most vivid examples are from the watch industry, where they say the largest companies have been blocking development of smaller ones. Survivors are finding new ways to compete — like the Swiss watch independent HYT, which is using collaborations with other watchmakers to push boundaries with fluid-based mechanisms.

In many ways, the book feels timely, with its emphasis on the need for design and engineering advances, as well as sections devoted to crowdfunding, 3-D printing, online retailing and the sharing economy — elements still just making themselves felt in luxury.

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The four “Rocket” authors, all senior executives at Boston Consulting Group, take a more holistic approach to brand issues. The book is not focused on luxury, but its lessons will ring true for the industry. To build a great brand, companies must be slavishly devoted to pleasing “apostles,” the company’s best customers, according to the authors, Michael J. Silverstein, Dylan Bolden, Rune Jacobsen and Rohan Sajdeh.

The top 2 percent of customers will directly generate 20 percent of sales and account for 80 percent of total business by recommendations and word of mouth, they theorize. Turning that elite group into apostles for the brand requires an understanding of the moments when consumers make buying decisions and, the authors say, “Most companies don’t get it.” Instead, they just continue to research the mass audience and generate similar products.

The book’s 16 case studies focus on business leaders who do “get it,” in the authors’ estimation — including Apple and Victoria’s Secret. All the featured companies, including the Italian luxury brand Brunello Cucinelli, demonstrate inspiration, empathy for customers and a desire to “dazzle through design.”

The authors invoke the “physics of growth” in their analysis, while still making it clear that smart marketing is not always rocket science.